“Father! It’s all working out—”
“So I heard.” The man was tall, had grey hair that was combed back from his temples, and a smart suit on. He moved farther into the room, seeming to take everything in now. “This is not what I asked you to do.”
“But, Father, this will be so much better.” Miranda seemed to evolve under the stern gaze of her father. “You’ll see. I know you wanted to break the company up and sell it off.”
“I will be doing that, once I get controlling interest,” he snapped. “I get controlling interest, not you, Miranda.” He let out a sigh. “This is what I get from having daughters, not sons. I understand that your heart is getting all fluttery in the face of these alphas. It’s a natural female response to masculine strength, but not one you can afford to indulge.”
He patted her shoulder, her body flinching with each one, but he didn’t seem to notice this.
“I’ll find someone suitable for you to marry in time, but…Miranda, can’t you see why going off script is dangerous? What you’re proposing is kidnapping and murder. I asked for evidence to discredit the Lockwoods to present to the board, not make me a witness to bloody felonies.”
“More than a witness, John.”
Our eyes jerked sideways, and our nose flared, sucking in the scents of a room I’d previously been panting shallowly to avoid, because in they walked. We were on our four paws, our nose pressed through the wire, snuffling madly to confirm what we could already see—each one of my mates strode into the room, their eyes like the moon themselves as they raked them across everyone here.
“We wanted to push our way in here and shove you fucks to one side like the pieces of shit you are,” Lucien snarled, and our body quivered at the sound of it. “But Max had an idea.”
“It’s all recorded,” he said mildly, tapping on his phone screen, and I heard a tinny Miranda pontificating, all over again, before he blessedly paused it. “You wanted evidence for the board? Well, you’ve provided it.”
“Chloe spoke quite quickly when I made…clear who important it was that she confess everything,” Tobias said grimly.
“Working with her to plant Crystal in our office?” Beau asked. “Trying to split up our pack, help us to fail to put on the symposium…” He shook his head then. “Though we were doing a good job of that on our own.” His expression hardened then. “But when that didn’t go far enough, you were going to—”
His words were cut off as Max stepped forward, fangs bared as he shoved his hand under Miranda’s chin and shoved her against the wall.
“You were going to kill my mate? The one fucking woman in this world that owns my heart?”
“I had nothing to do with that,” John, Miranda’s father, said hurriedly.
“No, but you were covertly trying to destabilise our leadership of Dacian so you could devalue the stock and then snap it up cheap and sell off the various components for far more than you paid for them,” Tobias snapped. “Nothing criminal there, which was why I hadn’t moved against you yet.”
His gaze was redirected back to Miranda.
“You’ve had us under surveillance for some time, looking for evidence you can use.” His smile spread slowly. “We know because we were doing the exact same thing, though I admit, my focus was on John, not Miranda. We underestimated you. That won’t happen again. Lucien, call the police.”
“On it.”
That was when they turned to me. I straightened up, staring at them from behind the cage, needing their silvery gaze like the sea needs the moon to stir. They approached, Miranda left coughing and spluttering as Max left her behind, slumping down to the floor to the sounds of her father’s increasingly shrill shouts.
“What a beautiful wolf you make,” Tobias said with a smile, but when he reached out to unlock the gate, something happened. Some instinct, some automatic response, had my fangs baring, a low growl resonating in my chest, growing louder, forcing him to jerk his hand back once he’d unlatched the cage door.
I came rushing out, bristling with anger, with a need to protect myself. When they stepped back, when they flinched away as my jaws snapped in the air, when they felt fear, shock, surprise at my response, I sucked in the souring of their collective scent like it was the sweetest of perfumes.
I took it as my due.
The human part of me quailed at this, at attacking the very people who’d rescued us, who’d protected me, my mates.
But the wolf?
She was fucking angry that it’d even come to this. Bringing us to another bitch’s nest, letting us settle down there, thinking we were safe, thinking it was safe to mate with them…
“Shift, Sage.” Tobias’ voice vibrated with alpha power, trying to force my body to comply, but I wouldn’t, because one thing was true.
Omegas submitted to alphas, but only when they were ready, when they’d proven themselves worthy of him or her, and right now, they weren’t.
I planted my feet and threw back, letting out a long howl, one that filled and filled the room, driving out every other sound.
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